Learned member of Lincoln’s Inn, born in the year 1666. He was called to the bar in 1719, was treasurer of Lincoln’s Inn for the year 1730, and died in 1743. In conjunction with Mr. Peere Williams, Mr. Melmoth was the publisher of Vernon’s Reports, under an order of the Court of Chancery. But the performance for which he is justly held in remembrance is The Great Importance of a Religious Life Considered, London, 1749; of which above 100,000 copies were sold during the last century. This admirable treatise was published anonymously, and was for some time erroneously attributed to John Perceval, the first Earl of Egmont, A new edition of this work, with a memoir of the author and four appendices, was privately printed as a present to the benchers of Lincoln’s Inn by Charles P. Cooper, Esq., London, 1849. (See Memoirs of William Melmoth, published by his son, 1796.)
